7 reasons why small businesses should outsource marketing efforts
Contracting a digital marketing agency may seem like something that only a Fortune 500 company can do, but that notion is outdated.
Only 6% of businesses outsource all of their marketing, meaning 94% utilize in-house staff as marketers.
Currently, good employees are few and far between. There are agencies designed to specifically help small businesses like yours with marketing. This piece describes a few of the many benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing.
1. Expertise
A team of marketing experts will think differently than your current in-house marketing employee does.
Marketing firms are able to examine your industry in a more detailed, non-biased way while selecting a specific target market.
They stay on top of trends and update their strategies to maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns.
They understand niche markets, emerging platforms, and best practices. Becoming an expert in marketing requires learning, testing, analyzing, and most of all, time.
2. Fresh perspective
Most marketing managers are extremely business savvy. They dream about fixing inefficiencies and streamlining processes.
Firms will constantly analyze current marketing practices to make sure the strategy best suits the needs of your company.
They can offer brand building and tweaks to ensure your customers have an enjoyable experience from the first interaction to the final sale.
3. Time
Time is the most valuable asset to a business owner. Most would rather spend time on more immediate issues than try to juggle 10 different aspects of a marketing strategy.
Oftentimes, marketing is reactive when managed by busy in-house staff. Maintaining a consistent message and constantly reevaluating the strategy is key to success in marketing.
Outsourcing (your) marketing will free up time for yourself and your employees making the business more efficient.
4. Reduced Fixed Costs
If you’re hiring an in-house marketing manager, it’s most likely that he or she will be an hourly employee that may also receive company benefits. If the in-house manager is part-time, are you sure they’ll be available to respond to an urgent online issue? If they are a full-time employee, are you sure they have enough marketing tasks to keep them busy? Or do they spend time working in other areas of your business, too?
These are great questions to think about, and hiring an outsourced marketing team instead of an employee could save money in terms of fixed costs.
With marketing firms, you’ll define specific goals, and pay a specific price for those goals to be completed.
You won’t be paying any hourly rates, benefits, unemployment claims, etc. for a marketing firm as you would for an employee.
5. Reliability
In 2023, quality employees are scarce. Qualified employees are hard to find, hard to keep, and expensive.
When your in-house marketing manager clocks out for the day, weekend, or vacation, he/she will not have a sense of urgency to respond to inquiries or answer questions. Marketing agencies will be available full-time, meaning they will be a reliable source when an online issue arises.
Here at C&E, we value our customers immensely and will work hard to keep your business. We’ll be sure to take care of any pressing issues in a quality way and as fast as we can.
6. Quality
Americans are constantly exposed to advertising. The worst ads are disruptive, annoying, and ineffective. The best ads are informative, gripping, happen organically, and do not appear as ads.
From graphic design to ad copy, marketing firms are experts at every step and will ensure campaigns are of the highest quality.
Helpful marketing professionals will execute all best practices while providing detailed reports to justify your investment. Plus, marketing agencies base their goals around your goals.
Goal alignment in every marketing effort can pay off and establish a quality marketing strategy.
7. Analysis
Does your in-house marketer analyze each marketing effort and report back?
It is easy to let your marketing efforts slip when it is difficult to measure the Return on Investment (ROI). “Reach” and “ clicks” are some of the many metrics that platforms provide once an ad campaign is running or complete. While these metrics provide a good baseline, it can be difficult to measure the overall success of all marketing efforts.
It is even more difficult to turn that data into information that can guide your future marketing efforts. Marketing agencies are equipped with data analysis tools and can provide detailed reports that will allow you to better estimate the effectiveness of your strategy.
Using data, they will informatively guide you through successful marketing campaigns in the future.
What Aspects of Marketing Should Small Businesses Outsource?
Each business owner and their employees have skills and knowledge that can help the business with marketing. Some of your employees may spend their free time doing digital design, managing a personal blog, or have marketing degrees and/or certifications. It’s important to open the conversation with your employees about their strengths and ways they can improve your small business marketing.
If you feel that your and your employee’s time is better spent on tasks that contribute to other business operations, it’s time to outsource your marketing.
Think about what marketing tasks take the most time to complete. Is it posting on social media? SEO? Email Marketing? Digital Advertising? Blog Writing? Design? (Shameless plug: We have services for all of these.)
An agency may consult you about a new avenue of marketing that you never considered because 1) you don’t know how and/or 2) you don’t have the time and money to invest.
Start by giving your agency a few tasks: design work, social media posting, content writing (etc.). Consider the following during your initial campaign:
Responsiveness
Quality
Efficiency
Tonality
Design
As with any business decision, there are many pros and cons to choosing who to entrust with your marketing.
Cons include less control over messaging, the potential for unsatisfactory performance, and misaligned goals. It is important that you feel comfortable handing over the reigns to an agency.
Be sure to thoroughly communicate your goals and create an alignment with your outsourced marketing team.
Each business has its own unique needs. As the owner, you know your small business the best. Even if you do it all yourself, or have an in-house marketer, agencies can help in a variety of ways that can supplement what you’re already doing.
We believe that marketing for small businesses is an art form that takes a lot of practice. Marketing strategies can always be improved. We offer a wide range of marketing services and free marketing analysis Monday-Friday, so please feel free to reach out any time.
